Commanding Obedience

The History course in my class begins at the beginning—with God speaking, “Let there be light.” It’s simple enough, but not so that original sin can’t tangle it up. The curse of that first sin shows up in the answers of Second Graders who continue in the pattern of forefather Adam. Blame is the game.

The test question is: How did Adam and Eve fall out of fellowship with God?

Answer given: They ate the bad fruit from the bad tree.

It takes a few reminders, “God looked at all He created and saw that it was very good.” The tree wasn’t bad, nor was the fruit. Adam and Eve sinned because they disobeyed God’s commandment regarding the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sometimes they don’t like this answer. It’s too close to another one they don’t like to hear. “Why do we have to?” Because I said so.

Luther writes of it this way:

And so when Adam had been created in such a way that he was, as it were, intoxicated with rejoicing toward God and was delighted also with all the other creatures, there is now created a new tree for the distinguishing of good and evil, so that Adam might have a definite way to express his worship and reverence toward God. After everything had been entrusted to him to make use of it according to his will, whether he wished to do so for necessity or for pleasure, God finally demands from Adam that at this tree of the knowledge of good and evil he demonstrate his reverence and obedience toward God and that he maintain this practice, as it were, of worshiping God by not eating anything from it. (LW 1:94)

Thus a twofold temptation is put before Eve, by which, however, Satan has the same end in view. The first is: “God did not say this; therefore you may eat from this tree.” The second is: “God has given you everything; therefore you have everything in your possession; therefore this one single tree is not forbidden you.” However, each aims at the same end: that Eve be drawn away from the Word and from faith. This command about not eating from the tree, which was given them by God, is a convincing proof that even if his nature had remained perfect, Adam, together with his descendants, would have lived in faith until he would have been translated from this physical life to the spiritual life. Where the Word is, there necessarily faith also is. Here is the Word that he should not eat of this tree; otherwise he would die. Therefore Adam and Eve ought to have believed that this tree was detrimental to their welfare. Thus faith is included in this very commandment. (LW 1:153)

Consider Luther’s language here: demands; obedience; command; commandment. Why, he sounds positively Reformed!

NOT! He sounds particularly Lutheran, with a particularly Lutheran understanding of man’s relationship before God.

My students have taught me this lesson repeatedly. If I use the word “hell” to speak of it, one might say, “Oh! That’s a bad word. You shouldn’t say that one.” Oh really? You say it every day in chapel. Their eyes grow wide with wonder. “We do? Where?” So we stand and recite the Apostles’ Creed. There are no bad words, just words used wrongly.

It is the same with the words “commandment” and “obedience.” Now and again I hear in email conversations that this is “the language of the Reformed. We Lutherans simply don’t speak that way.” Since when? Since we Lutherans contracted a phobia of all things Reformed, perhaps?

I’ll grant that the Reformed and we Lutherans have a different understanding of these terms, and that we have differing applications of them with regard to our relationship to God and His relation ship with us. I will also grant that the manner in which the Reformed use these words will send a good Lutheran diving into the waters of his Baptism for relief. However, that does not mean that these words should fall out of use in the vocabulary of the Lutheran. They are good words, properly used. Good words improperly used need not be sent to the dust heap; they need to be washed off and put to good use.

Consider the fact that the Law is placed first in the Catechism. The anticipated use of the Catechism is for those who are of the family of God: those who are baptized or who are preparing for Baptism. This means the First Chief Part is teaching us to live within the Law, as well as to show us where we have fallen short of its demands. Each Commandment has both the positive and the negative aspect to it: This is what a child of God does not do; this is what a child of God does. From this we hunger for the Gospel.

The Commandments make us aware of our need for a Savior and the Means of Grace through which He comes to us. Are we not to use them daily for self-examination? Further, because Christ has united Himself to us in Baptism, because we are all one Body in Him, how we treat each other is how we treat Him (Ro 12:5). When we sin, we make Christ a participant in that sin with us (1Cor 6:15). The child who defies his parent or teacher is not angry at that one alone, but at his heavenly Father. The one who hits another child also injures Christ. There is no nebulous rationality and lengthy discussion regarding why we obey our God. We do it because He says do this, and we, as His children obey Him. What is a life of repentance all about if there is nothing by which we can judge ourselves? Commandment, obedience, repentance, and forgiveness, that’s what a Lutheran is all about.

Luther treats it this way in the Close of the Commandments:

God threatens to punish all who break these commandments. Therefore, we should fear His wrath and not do anything against them. But He promises grace and every blessing to all who keep these commandments. Therefore we should love and trust in Him and gladly do what He commands.

The first two sentences are clearly Law, burdening with punishment and the knowledge of an impossible demand. The third sentence gives relief at last. When God promises grace and blessing, He is speaking only of Jesus Christ. He is the only one who kept these commandments, and He did it for our sakes. Because we are baptized in His Name and now have His righteousness imputed to us, we are inheritors of what Jesus did for us. It is only through Jesus that we are able to keep the First Commandment, which requires us to love and trust God above all things so that we are able to keep all His commandments.

When a Lutheran speaks of his obedience, he recognizes the fact that he is dead in his sins and can do nothing to free himself from that situation. Jesus likes talking to dead people. They can’t do anything for themselves. All a dead person can do is what Jesus’ words say. “Lazarus come forth!” and a stinking body comes out of a grave. “Young man, I say to you, arise!” and the man sits up. Neither one of these men had enough wits about him to decide a thing. The dead do what the dead are told to do by the Lord of Life. Christ's word is effective because it is His word. It is the means whereby things happen. When Christ gives a command—Arise!—He also gives the means to obey that command within the word He speaks.

Creation was like that. The Resurrection will be like that. God spoke into the darkness and there was light. The darkness didn’t create the light. God’s speaking created light. John’s Gospel tells us all things were created in and through God’s Son (Jn 1:3). Specifically, John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). In the Resurrection Jesus will speak, and the dead in Him will arise. Now there is command and obedience for you!

If others want to believe that they can now be obedient to God’s commandments as Adam and Eve could have been prior to the fall in the Garden; if they want to think their relationship before God is right now something besides that of a dead man—that they can decide to accept or choose Jesus as their Savior—why should that scare us Lutherans off from using two perfectly good words in a right, proper and Lutheran way? We Lutherans certainly haven’t stopped ourselves from using the sign of the cross, crucifixes, genuflecting, incense, the liturgy and all manner of so-called too Catholic thingy-dingies.

God’s commandments are not abolished, and we are called as Christians to obey Christ (2Cor 2:5). Where the Lutheran must begin, however, is in his presupposition regarding these terms. We stand before God as beggars, with nothing in our pockets. We have nothing to give Him. We have not kept His commandments; we have not been obedient to Him. Furthermore, we are as dead beggars. We can’t even reach into our pockets to turn them inside-out to shake them one more time to find that one itsy-bitsy to redeem ourselves in good favor with our heavenly Father. Forget that… someone’s even stolen our clothes!

Who can save us? Thanks be to Christ Jesus our Lord! For it is He who clothes us in Himself, making us obedient according to His obedience to His Father’s every word and will.

St. Patrick and The Gang

Every at this time my class schedule begins to open up. We are in the fourth quarter and the end of the school year is near. March Madness has a different connotation. Spring fever hits hard.

We gained a new student in January, one who returned to us after three years in public school. He has turned the Troublemint Twins into a trio. He announced one day that he was the “mastermind” and his intention was to have the others as “henchmen.” The gang thinks that because it is March they must wear green every day. He who does not must be pinched. The one who came up with this idea is the lead pincher himself. The Pinching Machine was devilishly active for the first two days of March, not even respecting the wearing of the green. I nipped his little pincers yesterday when I told him that St. Patty’s Day was only one day out of the whole of March—and during Spring Break when he and his gang would be at home terrorizing parents and grandparents, not at school—so his two digits best remain to himself or he’d suffer consequences he hadn’t yet dreamed of. His little hand relaxed. Wise move. He’s a quick learner.

For all his wildness the kid’s a lot of fun. As soon as February ended he was excited about March. He danced into the room with a jig and wanted to know if we could speak “Scottlish” all month. He asked questions about St. Patrick, whether we would learn about him. Of course we would, I told him. And leprechauns, and post of gold, too? No, we don’t talk much about those things.

We learn about St. Patrick himself. He is a good saint with which to acquaint children—not so much as a model and an example, but for his writings. Patrick’s Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, The Lorica (or Breastplate), and his Confession are excellent study resources for children to learn how others have confessed their Christian faith. While Patrick is not necessarily an easy read, he is worth the effort. For the well-catechized child, his words are not only familiar; they prove also to contain the true treasure for which his day is remembered. It is not with gold and silver that Christ rescues us in and from this world, but with his holy precious Body and Blood.

Good resources for teaching St. Patrick are Fr. Tommy Lane and Love to Learn Place. Fr. Lane has a short homily that includes biographical details. Love to Learn is a homeschooling resource I recently discovered and will be utilizing in the future. On that link are Patrick’s Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, The Lorica (or Breastplate), and his Confession along with study guides. Each is available in .pdf file. All look to be excellent for both at home or in classroom study.

Der Struwwelpeter

He’s baaaaaack—that rumple-headed, slovenly, ill-kempt little boy known as Struwwelpeter. Dover Publications presents the German morality poems of a century and a half ago translated into English with the original delightful drawings by Heinrich Hoffman. The original German text by Hoffman is included in the appendix.

Der Struwwelpeter was one of my childhood books when I lived in housing like those above. Hoffman’s tale of Johnny Head-in-Air was one to take seriously if I wanted to dodge the gifts of the sheep after they’d been through the valley, our favorite playground. I didn’t care much for Conrad’s demise. I began reading Der Struwwelpeter when I was five, and the sight of a child with his thumbs whacked off was discomforting. Harriet’s final hours suited me no better.

I got over it, and I’m better for it. Der Struwwelpeter eventually became the dearest book of my childhood. When my mother returned to Germany several years ago she asked what she could find for me. One thing only: a copy of that beloved and long lost book. Eventually I even found it in Hebrew. Alas, it has been sadly “PC-ed”—cleansed of the story of Agrippa and his mighty ink pot teaching rude young hooligans

Boys, leave the black-a-moor alone!

For if he tries with all his might,

He cannot change from black to white.

Surely concession, if not understanding, can be made to Hoffman for his use of “black-a-moor,” for he means no insult to race by it. The young child referred to is simply a black Moor, and Hoffman’s era was not so very politically correct in language as our own. What is important is the lesson he teaches about teasing and verbal abuse.

One of these books from Dover Publications remains at home with me. The other is in my classroom where I introduced it to my students. At first they looked at the pictures and delighted in the gore. This is a generation hooked on Freddy and Jason, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and all manner of torture and mayhem without a reason even at a very young age. However, the purpose of fairy tale and morality stories is not gore and gruesome for its own sake, but to do the work of the Law in us. With very little coaxing, these well-catechized children were soon finding the Ten Commandments in the poetry of Dr. Hoffman. “Conrad should have listened to his mother. That’s Fourth Commandment.” “Harriet burned herself… Augustus won’t eat… that’s Fifth Commandment.” When the Law has its way with us, the Gospel can then have us by the ears. Morality stories have a place in Christian libraries for this reason.

Struwwelpeter

Available: Dover Publications

Grade Level: 4 - 7 (ages 9 - 12)

ISBN: 0486284697

Page Count: 32

Cross posted: Luther Library

Geo vs. Helio or Christcentric?

Last year my oldest student was studying models of the universe as a part of his Greek, Roman, and New Testament History lessons. This naturally led to learning of the geocentric vs. heliocentric debate. Aristotle taught the geocentric system, Earth being at the center of the universe. It was not until Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler that the heliocentric theory was developed, with the Sun at the center of the universe.

Now that man has sent orbiting devices from Earth into space with cameras attached, the perspective of the photograph could sway the debate toward Aristotle once more – though with modifications on his original model. From a particular angle, Earth is the center of the universe as we know it.

Looking through the lens of scripture, a whole other perspective is gained. John 3:16 tells us “In this way God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The Greek word used is “kosmos,” or universe. God sent his Son to the Earth to be born of a human woman (Ga 4:4), in order to die for the sins of all mankind. From God’s perspective, the universe is Christocentric.

So last year we made models of the universe with Styrofoam balls, glitter, paint, and wooden picks. We only made the number of planets Aristotle knew. Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, the Sun and Mars revolve around the Earth with her Moon. A tag hangs from Earth with John 3:16 written on it, just to keep everything in proper perspective.

The Grammar of Baptism

Shurley Grammar starts teaching students in the First Grade the two-point expository paragraph. I’ve taught Shurley through five levels. I know the beauty of what comes next, and next, and so on. While the format may seem wooden and confining at first, it lays the foundation for a great deal more. In fact, to know the formula for the X-point expository paragraph is to be able to expand in essays that expound on any subject. Or, it can be crafted into a persuasive paragraph, which is the foundation for political speech and other formal writing. Once the student knows the basic form, he can return to it when his writing “falls apart” in order to regain structure and balance.

This is like the Dennis Van deMeer theory of tennis instruction. He broke every stroke down to its simplest part, then taught each one in the most structured way he could. Every player mastered the basics, and then moved on to add his own personal style. Later, when the player’s game fell apart – as each player’s game does at some point, he would go back to the basic stroke and build up from that again. The reminder of what does not change in each stroke is what helped to put the player back on his game again. It worked for players like Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. In its own way, it’s classical tennis education.

This student was having none of it with regard to paragraph writing. He wanted paragraphs his way. He knew how to write a two-point expository paragraph. He had written several in First Grade when I first taught it to him. He wrote one this year in Second Grade with no problems. Now for eight weeks he was struggling, or so it seemed. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, for a while. Not any more. I was no longer in doubt as to what he was up to.

I assigned the students a paragraph a week. Seven sentences, that’s all. They were all according to the same Shurley formula, and outlines were provided to assist them. Yet every week this one student wandered off course. There were too many points, or too many supporting sentences for each point. Or, his paragraph would actually be a science report or a story he’d made up. His excuse was always the same, “Oh, I forgot!” Eight weeks of these shenanigans and he’s no lightweight in the intelligence department.

Now, this kid likes to argue. It’s his favorite activity. So I thought I’d play to that as an advantage. I tried explaining to him the benefits of knowing the two-point expository paragraph as it led to the three-point expository, and then to the three-point persuasive paragraph. From there he’d learn to formulate debate, political speeches and the art of rhetoric. He stared blankly at me.

That’s when it dawned on me. I was discussing the benefits of doing things the right way with a terrorist. Not that my student was a terrorist in fact – far from it. I mean that the situation was comparable to a democratic nation engaging in negotiations with those who are incapable of understanding the benefits of peaceful coexistence in the first place.

The solution was easy. I issued an ultimatum. “Get the job done, do it my way, or you get a zero. You’ve had eight weeks of help from me, now you are on your own.” His reply was simple. “Yes, ma’am.” He hasn’t missed a week turning in his properly done paragraph since that day.

It occurred to me that when it comes to us God is dealing with terrorists, too. The First Commandment tells us to “fear love and trust in God above all things.” Yet we must confess that we have not kept this commandment. We must speak as Paul does and admit that we are hostile to God, and cannot subject ourselves to his will or his law (Ro 8:7). We hate God. That is the ugly truth about us. We do not even desire to do the things God wishes us to do. Unless he first threatens us with punishment, we do not even know we have a need for him. Even after God reveals his heart to us in his Son Jesus Christ, we cannot but grasp the barest glimmer of an understanding of his love for us (Ro 11:33). There simply comes a time when it is best to sit down, shut up, listen, and say nothing more than “Amen.”

This world despises authority. The good old days of addressing children according to “because I said so” are too often said to be “overbearing.” A kinder, gentler approach is suggested. Explain to the child what you are doing and why. Get him to understand. Sometimes that does work. But then again, children can also stand to learn that when their parents speak the world stops turning for that moment. That’s not necessarily authoritarianism, which is an improper use of authority. It is the right and proper use of the Fourth Commandment. Parents stand in the place of God in the home. To despise parental authority is to also despise the authority of the One who is behind the parents. Further, parents who cannot be believed when they say “No” are they who are not to be trusted when they say “I love you.” The God who tells the truth to us about our sins is the one who tells the truth about our resurrection.

God’s authority is not merely that of the Law, when he shakes us up to demonstrate to us that we are destined for hell. Baptism is about going to hell as well as heaven. For, everyone who is baptized is declared to be a sinner, and every sinner deserves hell. But Jesus does not let baptism rest in hell, for he only concerns himself with sinners. Sinners destined for hell die with Jesus on the cross, and are raised up with him in his resurrection. And it is then that baptism is for being in Christ in heaven.